French farmers close in on Paris as government struggles to calm protests

31 Jan 2024, 08:47 by FRANCE 24 · France 24

Farmers' unions, unimpressed by concessions offered by President Emmanuel Macron's government, encouraged their members to fight on for improved pay, less red tape and protection from foreign competition.

"I'm so proud of you," Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, head of the farmers' association in the southwestern Lot-et-Garonne department, told protesters headed for the wholesale Rungis market south of Paris, a key food distribution platform for the capital.

"You are fighting this battle because if we don't fight we die," he said.

Police said 18 people were arrested for "obstructing traffic" near Rungis, which the government had warned farmers to stay away from.

Speaking on France 2 television, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said police stood ready to defend strategic spots and larger cities.

"They can't attack police, they can't enter Rungis, they can't enter the Paris airports or the centre of Paris," said Darmanin, who has previously ordered police to tread lightly. "But let me tell you again that if they try, we will be there."

Despite the warning, a convoy of tractors that started in the French southwest resumed its drive towards Rungis early Wednesday after spending the night on farms along the way, AFP reporters said.

Police units with armoured vehicles have been deployed along the A6 motorway leading to the food market in anticipation of their arrival.

Darmanin said there were 10,000 protesting farmers on French roads Wednesday, blocking 100 spots along major roads.

In addition to moving on Paris, convoys were also attempting to encircle Lyon, France's third-biggest city.

'Strength and pride'

Farmers’ complaints range from rising costs to meeting carbon-cutting targets, fuel prices, inflation, bureaucracy, and Ukrainian grain imports.

The French mobilisation has blown up into a serious crisis for Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is only three weeks into the job after a cabinet shake-up.

Addressing parliament on Tuesday, Attal said his government stood ready to resolve the crisis and praised the agriculture sector as "our strength and our pride".

Agriculture embodies the "values of work, freedom and entrepreneurship", Attal said, adding: "It is one of the foundations of our identity and our traditions."

In an apparent reference to contested EU rules, he said: "France must be granted an exception for its agriculture."

But in an acknowledgement that a first battery of measures announced on Friday did not go far enough, Attal told lawmakers that "new support measures" would be announced in the coming days.

Baptism of fire: New French Prime Minister faces farmers protest © France24

The prime minister met with officials from the FNSEA farmers' union, the country's largest, in Paris on Tuesday evening.

He was due to meet Wednesday with another union, the Farmers' Confederation – which on Tuesday called for the blocking of distribution centres for grocery stores to protest over chains that sell agriculture products below cost, at farmers' expense.

It said Attal had yet to offer "any long-term prospects" for farmers.

Spotlight on Mercosur trade deal, Ukraine farm imports

France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Paris would prevent a trade deal between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur, which has emerged as a key grievance for farmers worried about foreign competition.

"This Mercosur deal, as it stands, is not good for our farmers. It cannot be signed as is, it won't be signed as is," Le Maire told broadcasters CNews and Europe 1 on Wednesday.

Speaking during a visit to Sweden on Tuesday, Macron had already expressed France’s opposition to the planned trade deal, though he also said it was "too easy" to blame all the farmers' woes on the EU.

"We did a lot in the last years to help," said the French president, whose country is the largest beneficiary of the EU's agricultural aid.

After more than a week of intensifying French protests, disgruntled farmers in other European countries have joined the movement.

Dozens of Italian farmers staged a protest with tractors near Milan on Tuesday, the latest in a series of small demonstrations across the country.

Spanish farmer unions said they would join the movement with a number of protests, while Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis offered to speed up financial aid to farmers to stave off protests engulfing other countries.

Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and Romania have all seen protests in recent days.

Much anger is directed at environmental requirements included in the EU's updated Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the bloc's forthcoming "Green Deal".

The Mercosur deal as well as Ukrainian grain imports into the EU are on the agenda of talks between Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday.

Hoping to calm angry farmers, the EU said Wednesday it plans to extend tariff-free entry for Ukrainian farm products for a year from June, but with "safeguards" to stop cheaper imports from flooding the market.

For the most sensitive products – poultry, eggs and sugar – an "emergency brake" would be used to stabilise imports at the average volumes of 2022 and 2023.

Brussels separately proposed another one-year exemption – though a partial one – from rules forcing farmers to leave a share of their lands fallow, imposed as part of the bloc's common agricultural policy and to promote biodiversity.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP)